Dr Sahil Nijhawan

Dr Sahil Nijhawan is an engineer turned conservation anthropologist. For almost two decades, he has conducted multidisciplinary research on human-wildlife relations in Latin America, Southern Africa and India, incorporating his training in physical, natural and social sciences. Since 2012, he has worked with and alongside the Idu Mishmi people of Arunachal Pradesh (India) - a journey that began with his doctoral work on understanding socio-cultural, ecological and political relations between the Idu Mishmi and a scientifically new population of tigers in their ancestral lands. He is part of local teams in India's Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland working on a range of locally-led initiatives towards rights-based, ethical bio-cultural conservation and research.

He is a Future Leaders Fellow at the Zoological Society of London and University College London, Scientist with the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), member of the Coexistence and ICCA Consortia, and part of two IUCN Species Specialist Groups.